Watching the current trends and future direction of Oracle's Applications

Monday, September 15, 2008

All Spruced Up

It's a sure sign that Oracle OpenWorld is at hand: the junk mail is pouring in, both email and snail mail. In the past, I really got some solid value out of the snail mail adds - I would save all that junk mail, wrap it up in really tight paper logs, and use them as firestarters in my fireplace over the winter. Now that I'm older and lazier, I just throw it all away...

I've put together my final schedule (well, final for the moment - things will certainly change as the conference progresses) and pretty much know where I'll be most of the time, although my Monday and Tuesday evening schedules are way overbooked. So now I'm pretty much all spruced up and ready for the Big Dance. I've got some sessions planned, some windows during each day for wandering around and talking to people (the best and most valuable part of any conference, IMHO), and some discussions to attend at the Unconference. In fact, the Unconference looks really strong this year; any time I find myself with a few open moments, I'll probably be at an Unconference session.

A few folks (like my boss) really like to know specifically which sessions I'll be attending at which particular time. Well, like I said, I have a plan. However, I'll very likely change it up quite a bit depending on how things go. If you really want to know where I'm at and what I'm doing, follow me on Twitter (my id is fteter). I'll be attempting to improve on my "Twitter slacker" challenge during OOW. I'll also be blogging from the conference at time permits, but my Twitter posts should be the closest thing to real time updates.

So, what you think we'll see and hear at OOW this year? I have four announcements/events/activities/presentations I speculate ("speculate", as in I don't know diddly and have aboslutely no reliable info - I'm just guessing) will take place during OOW:

An announced release or release date for E-Business 12.1

A basic message for apps customers about using Fusion Middleware to extend your current Oracle applications

An overview on how BEA and Hyperion components fit into and interact with the Oracle product family

An announced release or release date for some early Fusion Apps, probably in the CRM space but not part of an integrated suite.

I'd really like to hear your guesses as well, so hit me in the comments.

Six days left until I step off the plane in SFO on Sunday morning...looking forward to it! Hope to see you there.